Tron, Death's Shadow, And A Modern In Flux

This weekend's Modern Open and Invitational marked the fourth straight week of decline in success of the supposed new boogeyman of the format, U/R Gifts Storm. Meanwhile, the previous boogeyman, Death's Shadow, has regained the format's top spot and continues to inch upward.

The printing of Search for Azcanta has led to a slew of U/W/x Control decks making use of the powerful Ixalan enchantment, with Jeskai the most common breed, though U/W and Four-Color (Jeskai with black) are not uncommon.

Two of the most notorious strategies in recent years, Affinity and Collected Company, have slid downward, likely at least partially because of Search for Azcanta and the strategies it enables.

The UrzaTron engine had a fantastic weekend, climbing from less than 4% of the weighted Top 32 metagame in the previous three weeks to 18% in Roanoke this weekend. This includes Eldrazi Tron, like that played by Modern Open finalist Joseph Horton and Invitational Quarterfinalist Michael Hamilton.

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Notably, Sorcerous Spyglass continues to provide extra disruption for a "color" notoriously short on it.

It also includes G/X Tron, which Benedict Chukwuma lead to the triumphant return of. His list eschewed black removal spells like Fatal Push and Collective Brutality,for a heavy Forest manabase (relying on Dismember and All Is Dust to supplement his big colorless threats in the removal department).

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All told, there have been 22 archetypes hitting at least 1% over the past five events (sixteen hitting at least 2%). Not only is there a tremendous width of strategies, even the most-played archetypes are not overwhelmingly popular.

Only three macro-archetypes hit double digits across the five events' weighted winner's metagame:

And this is even lumping JundDeath's Shadow and Five-Color Death's Shadow in with Grixis Death's Shadow, as well as putting Jeskai with Four-Color Control decks and U/W Control decks, like that piloted to a Top 16 Open finish by Jeffrey Ashkin:

Ashkin relied on a diverse mix of planeswalkers to win, and I especially like the increased focus on Jace, Architect of Thought (a card I think is pretty underrated).

One of each? Okay, now he's just showing off…

...although Irrigated Farmland does give him a second dual he can fetch while also serving as a second land that can help him dig. With four Field of Ruins, he wanted to keep his basic count extra-high, so maybe this is how he's able to hedge.

I think people overlook Condemn sometimes. It's not super-flashy or anything, but when you're in the market for cheap removal for a U/W Control deck, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a better fifth piece of one-cost removal.

A diverse mix of sideboard threats has become standard operating procedure in Standard control decks, and Modern is not much different. Geist of Saint Traft, in particular, is a brutally fast and effective threat for how difficult it is to interact with.

Geist of Saint Traft has even been showing up in maindecks of some control decks again. For instance:

The following chart shows the weighted top table metagame breakdowns for the past five events, as well as a deck's average (Overall Meta) and an indication of whether the archetype was on the rise this weekend, down this weekend, or about the same.

Collected Company at just 8.91% is particularly surprising, as that includes Counters Company, Abzan Company, G/W Company, Bant Company, and Four-Color Company. That said, I do enjoy the recent style of G/W Company that has been making occasional finishes since the printing of Ramunap Excavator.

For instance, Ian Bosley's Top 8 list from the Open seems like it could be sweet:

Other interesting trends include W/B Eldrazi completely disappearing, now that Eldrazi Tron is back on the upswing, and Valakut's decline as the UrzaTron rises. The Temur style of Valakut has all but disappeared, with the most successful builds of R/G including some exotic card choices like Mwonvuli Acid-Moss and Chandra, Flamecaller.

It always just seems so wild to me when I see these decks with so few threats, but I guess Scapeshift and Valakut are pretty big threats. I am kind of disappointed to see no Hour of Promise in Ian Flinn's Top 8 list, however. It seems pretty good in this style of deck.

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B/G/x Midrange decks have definitely paid some of the price for the increase in blue decks we've seen because of Search for Azcanta. The most successful among them seem to be getting more aggressive in a diverse mix of ways, such as Joe Ambrosio's adoption of Hazoret the Fervent:

Goblin Rabblemaster can hit seriously hard and seriously fast. It's a great way to punish decks light on removal, and its biggest weakness is usually mid-sized creatures. The format is not exactly overflowing with those at the moment, however, and the Rabblemaster is looking pretty damn good.

Ambrosio's list wasn't the only Goblin Rabblemaster / Hazoret deck to put up an impressive finish this weekend. Russell Colosi made the Top 4 with a Mono-Red Prison deck capitalizing on Goblin Rabblemaster's synergy with Ensnaring Bridge (with Hazoret in the sideboard for the "backup plan").

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On the whole, it was a good weekend for Blood Moon, especially when used in rogue decks. Another example comes to us from Gerard Fabiano, who cashes basically every month with a sick new brew. His latest is a Temur Moon deck going a very different route from what we're used to:

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With fourteen serious threats, this is a much, much more aggressive style of Temur than we've seen in a long time. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't point out the Abrades and Jace, Architect of Thought in the sideboard. Love it.

Finally, there were two other niche strategies that did well in Roanoke compared to the previous month. Ali Aintrazi's exotic take on Lantern deserves a second look. His twist?

While you may not get cursed all that often in Modern, having hexproof is a pretty big game against decks like Burn or Valakut. He's even got Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard for increased player hexproof action.

It's not completely unheard of or anything, but Porphyry Nodes is such an exotic and weird card, it's worth the reminder that you can use it to hit hexproof creatures like Geist of Saint Traft. Just sayin'...

Gather the Pack is an interesting self-mill enabler, and with all creatures you want to draw (as opposed to Bloodghasts and Stinkweed Imps and so on), it can be really great those times we get to pick up two.

Spells (15)

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Week after week, Modern continues to impress and to evolve. Wizards of the Coast has been doing a shockingly good job adding relevant cards to the format, though I can't help but notice how much this glorious stretch of the format coincides with the removal of the Modern Pro Tour.

With the Pro Tour returning to Modern next year, will the format hold up?

I'm just glad Unstable cards aren't legal in Modern for 1.5 months or anything...

About Patrick Chapin

Patrick Chapin, "The Innovator," is a member of the Hall of Fame class of 2012. The Pro Tour Journey into Nyx Champion and five-time Pro Tour Top 8 competitor is a renowned deckbuilder and author of both Next Level Magic and Next Level Deckbuilding.